Intel SSD DC P3700 800GB Review - Ludicrous Speed for the Masses!

IOMeter - IOps

Iometer is an I/O subsystem measurement and characterization tool for single and clustered systems. It was originally developed by the Intel Corporation and announced at the Intel Developers Forum (IDF) on February 17, 1998 - since then it got wide spread within the industry.

Meanwhile Intel has discontinued to work on Iometer and it was given to the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL). In November 2001, a project was registered at SourceForge.net and an initial drop was provided. Since the relaunch in February 2003, the project is driven by an international group of individuals who are continuesly improving, porting and extend the product.

We are running new version of IOMeter, but with a similar configuration as compared with prior versions (i.e. compressibility of data, etc), as to maintain consistency across the test data pool.

Light desktop usage sees QD figures between 1 and 4. Heavy / power user loads run at 8 and higher. Most SSD's are not capable of effectively handling anything higher than QD=32, which explains the plateaus.

Regarding why we use this test as opposed to single-tasker tests like 4KB random reads or 4KB random writes, well, computers are just not single taskers. Writes take place at the same time as reads. We call this mixed-mode testing, and while a given SSD comes with side-of-box specs that boast what it can do while being a uni-tasker, the tests above tend to paint a very different picture.

Before getting into the actual results, the way we typically configure this test is to run only one worker thread, as you can't get QD=1 results with >1 worker running at once. 1 worker thread pegs the its associated CPU at ~220k IOPS. This is not the fault of the SSD under test, it is a limit of the benchmark itself (in our desired configuration). While this has not been a limit in the past, it clearly is now, as we can see the DC P3700 almost comically walk all over the competition. I mean seriously, nothing holds a candle to this thing. Further, it's outperforming a fair number of these devices even at it's QD=1 point. This means that it performs so fast, that it is very likely to bulldoze through the workloads as they are thrown at it, continuously acting to shallow the queue. In other words, it goes so fast that the queue would never get the chance to build very high in the first place.

Although it is true that this SSD is fastest at higher Queue depths, it is incorrect to say the speed of the P3700 is dependant on higher Queue depths. The speed advantage of the P3700 outperforms nearly all drives at a Queue Depth of 1 which is where most consumers will see the most benefit.

M.2 is a form factor not an interface. It can work with SATA, or PCI express AHCI or future PCI express NVMe. I think a better rundown of exactly what the NVMe really means for computing might be in order. It is confusing the hell out of me and many others.

We are working up a longer piece on the matter, but the short version is that there is significantly less per-IO overhead when compared to AHCI, meaning SSDs that can handle high IOPS can do so with less CPU overhead required.

really nice to heat that it is bootable!!
- Thought this would be really difficult because it's now no more AHCI but NVMe.
This topic can be very sensitive regarding the environment the drive is setup in.
Could you please give some more information regarding the possibility to boot?
Did you test it on your own?
which OS?
which Driver?
which board?
which bios-version?

does it work directly "out of the box" or do you have some special tricks?

The speed and overall performance are amazing!!!
Seeing this there is only one question; price-wise comparison to the new SF3700 PCI-e SSDs.

Pity you did not put the mainstream Samsung Evo 840 in the comparison charts; the 4-5X times performance increase would give just the needed feeling of this Intel goody.
Those that got that eye-catching Mac-Pro must be flabbergasted seeing this :))

Do you mean the Samsung part that appears in Macs? That part caps out at ~50k IOPS and 800 MB/s, where this part goes 450k IOPS and 2.5 GB/s. It may be faster than SATA, but it still doesn't hold a candle to this new Intel part.

1. The broad audience just got used to SSDs in classic (HDD) format; considering that one of the drives mass market is most aware of is Samsung 840 Pro/Evo, since featured in many build guides, I thought that it would make a big impact, for many readers, seeing it compared to this revolutionary Intel drive.

2.MacPro was another thought; considering that it's really expensive (for those of us who like to make our own PCs) and it's being marketed as a "candy", I think that even putting the most expensive version of this Intel PCIe SSD drive into a home-made PC, leaves that MacPro as a brand marketing product.

There wasn't enough time to dig into it thus far, but I will likely clone over a heavily used system to check these sorts of things out. That sort of testing takes way longer than the 14 hours we had to play with it prior to the official announcement.

I can say that from what I've seen in the benches, especially IOMeter, this thing is going to handle any heavy IO workloads at the equivalent of anywhere from 4-8 of the best / fastest SATA parts, depending on workload. It will be to the point where the CPU becomes much more of a bottleneck during boot, etc.

So at what point are these just excessive for most users? I feel like the 180GB Intel 520 I have in my desktop is plenty fast enough for everything I do (although I'm not working with anything super high IO), are we reaching a point where only specialists really benefit from these new components? I've been wondering the same thing about m.2 and SATA Express: great to have the option, but will a normal consumer notice the difference?

Right you are, but there are times where SSDs are the bottleneck, depending on what you're doing. This product makes that much less likely to happen, giving better net gains to upgrading other parts of the PC.

I am disappointed for a couple reasons.
1. if it is indeed Ludicrous Speed! then why are the cards not Plad?

2. The price this should be under $1 a GB.
If we look at the 3 year old Z-Drive R4 that is used in this review we see that it is slower in most test but faster in another. (HD Tune 5.0) and under workstation loads gets decent IOPS.

if we change few names in your explanation, we could read that a 100$ Intel chip is the way to go and the new 350$ Devil Canyon piece is priced "ludicrous" to use your words.
actually, imagine using your way of comparing with an ARM for 20$!!! amazing value and price!

It would compare better to the p3500 at ~$1.50/GB but that is the low end,and no benchmarks to compare it to.
It Still is barely 1/2 the price.

So 10% cheaper, 2x Burst, 4x R/W, 5x IOPS, 75% faster HDTune read.

I am just comparing Price/Performance differences between SATA & PCI-E in the last 3 Years.

All I am saying is that PCI-E just has not gone down in price per performance nearly as much as SATA has even though SATA currently has a bottleneck of 6Gbps due to Sata 3.0 and could easily perform better w/o the SATA bottleneck.

if we change few names in your explanation, we could read that a 100$ Intel chip is the way to go and the new 350$ Devil Canyon piece is priced "ludicrous" to use your words.
actually, imagine using your way of comparing with an ARM for 20$!!! amazing value and price!

No that is not at all what I am saying. In comparison to what you are saying I would compare the performance differences from a 2011 to 2013 Same Tier chip and the 2011 to 2013 -E chips LGA-2011 and see what one has improved the most per $.

Example 2011 I7 3930K VS I7 4930K to I7 2600k VS 4770K and see what one of the 2 types of Sockets LGA-2011 VS LGA-1150 has has improved the most $/Performance.

This example is really hard to do as the chips are released 6 month apart.

Most storage products are optimized around >=4k write blocks (i.e. advanced format HDDs do the same). Modern file systems don't access <4k blocks, so optimizing for it is not necessary.

Further, if the internal addressing is aligned to match typical OS workloads at 4k, then writing smaller than 4k would require a read/modify/write operation, which takes significantly longer to accomplish.

It is all clear now. Intel dropped the SATA express interface from their next gen chipsets because of NVMe. I thought they were just being chipzilla as usual and capitalizing on their command of the industry.

The P3x00's will also be available in SATA Express, but to use full bandwidth, the motherboard is going to need to support the faster version of the spec. For desktop use, you'd likely be better off with the PCIe part.

Does this SSD come with a Full Height bracket? I'm quite a nut when it comes to having ludicrous storage in my system (used to have an Adaptec SAS controller with 4x 15K RPM Seagate Cheetah drives ever so long ago) and this is precisely what I've been waiting for.

Can't seem to find any details anywhere however on whether or not a Full Height bracket is provided.

Now I don't mean to interrupt important conversations about groundbreaking read/write speeds being made available to the public, but my main concern is your shirt Allyn. From behind your laptop, what I see is a Metroid.

The controller should step down / negotiate at PCIe 2.0 just fine. Older boards might have a harder time with bootability, but if used as a data drive for VMs, it should be fine. Expect a slight increase in latency / slight reduction in ultimate throughput over the slower PCIe bandwidth available. NVMe will function over *any* PCIe interface.

These are meant for enterprise. For those asking about a desktop get real. This is for business application use such as VDI or DB, not gaming and booting. Do you not get it really, $6k this is way more than your desktop.

I have been having problems with the P3700 being compatible with 2 of my asus boards a Maximus Extreme VI and a Z97 Deluxe, I cant get them to work with the P3700 no matter what I do. It works just fine with my ASRock Extreme 11 a/c but not my ASUS boards. I notice that you used an ASUS board for your review and was wondering if you had any compatibility issues that you had to deal with?

What if, theoretically, I'd hook p3500 on four lanes but not PCIe gen3 but gen2?
(that as I unhesitant is twice slower)
Would drive work? (maybe there are some issues)
What about bottle-necks? (in theory)

I have been having problems with the P3700 being compatible with 2 of my asus boards a Maximus Extreme VI and a Z97 Deluxe, I cant get them to work with the P3700 no matter what I do. It works just fine with my ASRock Extreme 11 a/c but not my ASUS boards. I notice that you used an ASUS board for your review and was wondering if you had any compatibility issues that you had to deal with?
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